


Contentment

by heavenseed



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Desus - Freeform, Fix-It, Hurt Jesus (Walking Dead), M/M, S9 Fix, twd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenseed/pseuds/heavenseed
Summary: My one-shot fix for the Season 9 midseason finale.  Because killing off Paul Jesus Rovia was a cop-out, and not allowing his full potential to be shown was a waste.  Gay characters deserve better.





	Contentment

When mothers lift cars off their children it is not because their love or fear make them super strong. It is because adrenaline will make a person immune to the sensation of pain. Their muscles and tendons are often irreparably damaged. Human beings will tear themselves apart for the people they love. Daryl Dixon was no different.

He couldn’t recall how he was able to get to Michonne’s horse, nor how he hauled the limp form of his friend onto the horse with him. He was vaguely aware that he could hear Dog whimpering somewhere behind him, punctuating the sound of another horse beside him. In his arms, Paul Rovia, wrapped in a saddle blanket, armor long forgotten, slumped forward. Every few minutes Daryl could feel the man tense beneath his arm, locked as if it was welded across Paul’s chest. The man in his arms was in pain, barely breathing, but thankfully alive. Daryl couldn’t think beyond getting Paul back to Hilltop, to Enid, to safety.

Riding in the fog made a trip that would have taken eons stretch even further. There was no sense of distance, nothing to mark the passing of the miles. The trip, longer still holding his friend’s life in his hands, seemed like a dream: the ubiquitous nightmare where you try to reach someone at the end of a long path and the faster you run, the further away they become. With each gallop, Daryl could feel Paul’s life spilling out onto his chest, his arms, soaking the blanket he was wrapped in. He could feel the labored breath, deep pulls of air that went nowhere. At first Paul held on to Daryl’s arm as they rode, though they eventually fell away, too weak to hold on.

Through the fog, Daryl heard Aaron yelling for the sentries to open the gate at Hilltop before Daryl even saw the walls. Aaron kicked his horse into a sprint and easily passed Daryl’s horse. Seeing the end in sight, Daryl pressed his own heels into the flanks of the beast on which he rode and urged the animal to go faster. He followed Aaron straight to the medical trailer, where Enid and Alden were already helping him off his horse.

“No!” Aaron kept the wiggly bundle in his arms from slipping and motioned to Enid and Alden to help Daryl. “Get Jesus!” Without waiting for them to acknowledge him, Aaron rushed into the medical trailer.

Daryl brought his horse up short next to Aarons, and then there were too many hands, too many faces below him, pushing and pulling at Paul. At Enid’s insistence, her eyes full of dread and sympathy, Daryl broke the iron grip he had around Paul and let him slip gently into the waiting arms of Alden and Siddiq, who wasted no time making room for Henry and Kal to help carry his pale body into the trailer. He dismounted Michonne’s horse, letting someone with gentle hands take the reigns from him. He stood staring at the door, behind which two of the people he cared for most in the world could be dying, or worse, turning… Along with his beloved Dog.

He felt familiar hands on his arms, attempting to turn him aware from the trailer, and distantly heard soft words filter through the fog filling his mind, urging him to come away. Hot, angry tears spilled over and silently marked his blood-stained face and suddenly he was unable to catch his breath. He wanted to rush in and pull Paul back into his arms and never let go. If he died… If Paul turned… he needed to be there for that. But Aaron was in there, and he wanted to keep his friend from suffering that end alone.

“Daryl, come get cleaned up.” Carol’s voice was a solid mass he could anchor himself to, as his grief threatened to let him float away like ashes. He started to let her lead him into Barrington House, when Aaron came through the trailer door.

Eyes red, brows pulled in to etch lines of worry into his forehead, Aaron quickly made his way to Daryl. 

“Dog’s gonna be OK. Paul…” Aaron’s voice wavered, but he swallowed and carried on. “Paul’s fighting. His lung collapsed and he lost a lot of blood.” Without warning Daryl pulled his friend into his arms, and with a sob he had been holding in the entire journey, Aaron hugged him back, fingers fisting in the worn leather of his vest. Watching them, the lump in Carol’s throat grew, and she had to cover her mouth with both hands to keep her cry from tearing a hole in the comforting bubble the men had made.

***

The sun burned away the fog that had settled over Hilltop, and the morning promised a beautiful day ahead. At a picnic table near the medical trailer, Aaron and Daryl sat vigil, their backs against the edge of the table top. Aaron absently cleaned his prosthetic arm with a rusty can of WD40 and a ragged bandana he kept for the express purpose. _Like the Tin Man._ Daryl thought. They were both clean, in clothes that didn’t smell like gore. Carol had not been able to coax either man into eating or trying to sleep.

“We’ve wasted so much time.” Aaron sighed and set the rag he’d been using aside. “This is a big damned wake-up call.” He was used to companionable silence with Daryl, used to holding up both ends of a conversation, so when Daryl didn’t respond, he just kept talking. “We’ve been lucky. To make it this long. But this world is still just as dangerous as it ever was. I feel so stupid…”

Daryl chewed his bottom lip, listening. He had been there when Aaron dove head first into being a father to Gracie, burying Eric’s death deep beneath the needs of a tiny, new being. It occupied his mind, it gave him an outlet for his affection and focused his energy. It did not, however, fill the gaping love-shaped void left when Eric’s corpse walked off into the woods. It was one of the many ways Daryl felt he had failed everyone in his life; it was one of the many reasons he walked off into the woods That Day, and didn’t look back. The seams holding his family together tore open That Day, and try as he might, he alone didn’t have the strength to stitch it back together. Neither did anyone else, apparently.

“I did it for you, you know.” Daryl said, his voice gravel in his throat.

Aaron turned his expressive blue eyes to Daryl’s, not having expected a two-way conversation. “Did what?”

Daryl looked away, unsure of himself. “Saved him. I know you two… I know he means a lot to you. I saw Dog attack that walker, and heard you yell, and I just, I don’t know man, I just couldn’t let him die…” Meeting Aaron’s eyes he said, “I didn’t want you to hurt no more.”

Something sparked in Aaron’s chest. Affection, love, gratitude… he didn’t know what or how many of those things he was feeling. He stared at Daryl for a long moment. There was only one thing he could think to say. “Thank you.” Aaron pressed infinitesimally closer into Daryl’s warm shoulder with his own.

Daryl nodded, glad he could make his friend smile, even if things didn’t turn out as well as they hoped. It had been hours, and except for Alden leaving to give Enid and Siddiq room to work, and getting Alex to come in to better assist, there had been little news of Paul’s welfare.

“I know you’ve been coming here to see him.” Daryl shifted nervously. “He make you happy?”

A man of few words, Daryl could say so much with so little effort. It took Aaron a moment to understand what Daryl was asking, and when the implication of the question hit him, he felt like he had been slapped. He scooted away from Daryl on the bench of the picnic table, so he could fully turn to face Daryl.

“You do know we’re just friends, right?” Aaron’s frown returned, and Daryl didn’t know how to respond. “We’re not… we’ve never… Jesus and I are good friends, that’s all.” Aaron watched confusion slide over the hunter’s face. If Paul weren’t dying behind the door of the medical trailer, Aaron may have laughed. “You know Jesus is… he’s in love with you!”

“No.” Daryl sat up taller, and Aaron could nearly see the walls being built around the other man.

“Yeah. He’s been in love with you since he brought you home from the Sanctuary! Daryl, how could you not know?”

The hunter stood, defiantly staring his friend down. “He don’t.” He tried to turn away, but Aaron was right there.

“He does. That’s what I meant! We all have to stop wasting time we might not have, Daryl!” Aaron grabbed Daryl’s bicep and swung around to face the stoic man. “I know you. I know you both. And if there’s anything I’m sure of, its that you two belong together. Even if I was interested, that man’s heart belongs to you!”

It was if the last brick fit into place in the fortress of Daryl’s heart. The realization that not only did Aaron see how he felt for Paul, but that Paul felt the same for him, and had made it a known fact. Overwhelmed with the severity of this revelation, Daryl’s dread swelled, and he felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the world. The truth Aaron spoke filled his eyes with hot tears, of shame and joy and sickening worry. Seeing all this take shape in his friend, Aaron pulled him in for an awkward hug.

The harsh slap of the trailer door snapping closed brought the men up for air. Standing on the steps to the trailer was an exhausted Enid, covered in blood. Neither could move, holding their breath.

A smile bloomed on the woman’s face as she said simply, “He’ll be OK.”

 

***

 

In his own bed inside Barrington House, Paul Rovia looked smaller than Tara had ever seen him. The trip up the stairs and into the bed had worn him out, and he fell asleep almost immediately. He didn’t even flinch as she started a new IV in his hand. She watched him, his breath shallow and lips twisted in a pained expression. He was pale, his eyes sunken. Laying in his bed with only a bandage across his chest, his strong body laid bare and vulnerable, Tara took stock of all the things they would have lost if the man in front of her hadn’t made it home. Despite his reluctance, Paul was a good leader, and she tried every day to convince him of it. People loved and respected him because he was willing to go outside the walls and risk it all to strengthen them.

“How is he?” Daryl’s low rasp shook Tara from her reverie.

“Exhausted. He’s got some pain killers, so he’s comfortable enough to sleep.” Tara covered Paul in a thin blanket. “Come in. Sit. I’ll be back in a bit to check on him.” Sheepishly, Daryl entered the room, letting Tara give his arm and affectionate squeeze as she went past.

It had been several days since the cemetery, and Daryl had barely slept. Seeing Paul gravely injured had shifted something inside him, something Aaron had nudged to hang just the right way.

“Gonna keep watch on me?” Paul’s voice was just a whisper on his lips. He turned his palm up on the bed, an invitation.

Daryl sat on the edge of the bed, slipping his big hand into Paul’s smaller one. “Feelin OK?” He let his thumb caress the top of Paul’s hand.

Paul nodded, then winced, which Daryl caught even though he tried to hide it. “As long as I don’t move. Or breathe.” He gave a Daryl a thin smile. “You’re too far away.”

Daryl slipped off his boots and lay down beside Paul, mindful of the bandage across his chest. “This OK?”

Paul hummed affirmatively. His limbs were heavy, though he positioned himself close enough to lay he head on Daryl’s shoulder. He laced his fingers together with Daryl’s between their bodies. He could feel the other man relax against him, and if he hadn’t been so exhausted, Paul may have quipped at Daryl to make him blush.

“I’m sorry.” Daryl placed a firm, confident kiss on Paul’s forehead. “Wasted too many years. We have a chance now and I ain’t gonna fuck it up.” He reached over and felt the smooth skin of Paul’s temple with the back of his hand, reveling in the new-found ability to show his affection.

Paul took his hand, kissing the palm and then holding it to his chest, just above his bandage. “You better not. I love you, Daryl Dixon, but you know I will kick your ass.” Paul’s lips quirked up on one side and he peered at Daryl through heavy eyelids.

Daryl huffed a laugh and kissed Paul’s head again, snuggling into the warmth of the other man’s presence. They fell asleep, Paul holding Daryl’s hand to himself, so the hunter could feel every beat of his heart. That is where Dog found them, limping on a bandaged leg, letting Aaron help him into the bed to curl up at their feet, content.

**Author's Note:**

> I will go down with this ship. I love writing these characters, even if they aren't mine. All mistakes are my own, written in one go.


End file.
